Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to charge more for food tickets at the Taste of Chicago and to hike the cost of thousands of seats to see concerts at the Petrillo Music Shell during the annual summer festival.

It’s the latest moves by the mayor to monetize Taste and create a more exclusive experience for people willing to pay more at an event that for decades was marked by its egalitarianism.

Under the plan Emanuel announced Wednesday, the city would double from $25 to $50 the cost of “premium” seats at Petrillo for nightly music shows. And for the first time, the city would charge for 3,000 “general admission lawn seats” at the Taste concerts.

City officials did not say how much the lawn seats will cost, but a proposed ordinance states that under the new cost structure, “the average cost per ticket sold to these concerts shall not exceed $25.”

More than 30,000 lawn spots for Taste concerts will remain free, according to the mayor's office, though the administration did not immediately explain how paying and non-paying concertgoers will be separated on the lawn.

Emanuel also wants people to pay more for the tastes at Taste. The surcharge collected by the city for every strip of 12 food tickets at the yearly lakefront smorgasbord would increase by 50 cents, from $2 to $2.50. That would increase the price of a 12-ticket strip to $8.50.

The food ticket surcharge was last raised from $1.50 to $2 in 2008, according to the mayor's office. If food ticket sales remain the same as last year, the additional ticket surcharge will bring in another $300,000, city spokesman Jamey Lundblad said.

The Taste concerts did not all sell out last year, but Lundblad said that if they do sell out this year, the additional seat fees would raise $375,000.

Emanuel has been adding new fees to Chicago’s trademark summer event for years. He started charging $25 for reserved seats at Petrillo concerts during Taste in 2012.

And he introduced $40 tickets to fancy dinners prepared each day by renowned local chefs at Taste, which for decades was noteworthy for the fact that millions of attendees waited in the same lines and paid the same amount to sample from dozens of Chicago restaurants.

Emanuel also cut the festival's length in half from 10 days to five days in 2012 and moved it to mid-July from its traditional Independence Day slot. Shortly after taking office in 2011, the mayor said he would move Taste toward profitability, but Emanuel later pivoted away from the expectation of at least breaking even, saying the key was to make Taste safe and family-friendly.

Taste lost $1.3 million in 2012 before turning a slight profit in 2013, according to the city.

“Last year’s Taste of Chicago was a great success, recouping more than its costs for the first time since 2007 and generating an estimated economic impact of more than $100 million for Chicago businesses,” Emanuel said in a news release about the latest changes. “We continue to offer free admission and entertainment, and the proposed changes will create a sound financial future for our premier lakefront festival.”